Ok, ok. You guys are all missing the big problem here. God, I desperately
want to use all-caps but won't Harm. I am the Main tank. Its me, just me
90% of the time. When its not just me as the Main Tank, and Only Tank, 50%
of the time its me and another bard 2 levels below me. Almost no one I know
who is a casual player will play a melee class. Everyone I know, in game
and out, is a casual player.

None of these options work because I am the Main Tank. If I do something
that prevents the enchanter from letting us fight the mobs one at a time we
will all die. I can't absorb that kind of damage and damage absorption is
usually all me. They do just fine without me there. They don't really need
a tank, they have proved that the cleric can tank just fine for them at this
point. I am generally there for company and because they know if I'm there
I'll be the one that dies if anyone does.

The only way we have been able to fight there is to mez everything, keep it
that way the entire fight, and pick off the mobs one by one. It works well,
but problem is if anything goes wrong its me that dies. Almost every time.
If I die, the caster's just run the few steps to the zone. They all have a
head start on the mobs generally because they are all on me already. If I
start breaking out AoE DoT attacks the enchanter will be useless. I
guarantee if I were to do this I would be the one put out of the group for
being a bad player. It just won't work without at least one real tank.
Last time I was in Sol A there were 38 players. 4 melee classes including
me. 1 warrior, 2 Sk's and me. That was it in the whole place.

Kit

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin L. Crawford [mailto:Lyrnia@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 12:08 PM
To: eqbards@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [eqbards] Bards abilities redefined was: Attack speedups

Overall I'd say that you're not operating in groups that are pushing their
limits enough. A bard is a HUGE downtime reducer, at all levels. I'll
explain inside the post.

> We do not do much for downtime between 12th and 31st. Before 12th I was
> greatly appreciated for my downtime redux, since then no one mentions it.
> Mana is the sole cause of our downtime at this point and I can do nothing

> alleviate that for another 9 levels.

This is not true at all. If you are pulling enough to fight constantly mana
is a problem only if your casters are having to cast too much. At around
12th a bard should consider going all-instrument. I did and my group
immediately noticed a huge difference in the number of mobs we could hand at
a time, the shortened downtime we experienced and the greater efficiency we
had in dealing with creatures.

My combo from 12th to 18th was basically: HoR, CoD, Anthem with a lute
equipped the whole time. I also spun in Bellow now and then. At 18th I
twisted in DDD instead of Bellow. This accomplished several things:

1) Gave the healer 1 target to heal: Me.
2) Cut down the number of nukes the wiz/druid/whoever had to cast (Dot's
did the rest)
3) Kept the primary tank totally healed almost every fight
4) NPC's were mostly dead by the time we got to them, thus shorter fights
on big pulls, thus less mana used

Whenever I left a group I was begged to stay because the group immediately
had to back off on the number of mobs they pulled or the power of mobs they
pulled. Our estimate was that I doubled (or nearly doubled) the
effectiveness of the group. We tested this mostly in East Karana (pretty
much my home from 12th to 20th) but it works out the same in any zone where
you can pull a steady supply of nasties.

Bard in Group: Pulls of 4-5 creatures all blue to white, constant pulls,
almost no pauses
Bard out of Group: Pulls of 2-3 creatures all blue some whites
occasionally, resting regularly between pulls to get mana/hp back.

> By then the enchanter will have
> clarity. Maybe after 32nd I would be able to reduce downtime again, but

> already has not been the case for 10+ levels with another 9 to go. Having

> primary that doesn't exist for 20 levels isn't much of a primary. My

groups

> haven't had a hp downtime for at least 2 months.

Reducing downtime isn't just speeding up the regen of mana/hp it's also the
slowing down of the USE of mana and HP. And nobody does that better than a
bard using instruments. We do the following when singing
DOT/Healing/Speedup combos:

1) Decrease the number of blast spells needed due to DOT being up
(decreases mana useage)
2) Decrease the number of blast spells needed due to Melee being faster
(Decreases mana useage)
3) Decrease the number of blast spells needed due to shorter fights
(Decreases mana useage)
4) Decrease the number of healing spells needed due to our regen song
(Decreases mana useage)
5) Decrease the number of healing spells needed due to shorter fights
(Decreases mana useage)
6) Decrease, dramatically, the odds of a healer getting mobbed due to our
DOTs keeping the unengaged npc's attention.

So, as you see, we DRASTICALLY reduce the _expenditure_ of mana. Thus
decreasing downtime. Many groups don't realize this because they don't
think about how much less mana they're USING durning fights. It could also,
as I mentioned above, be due to the fact that the group isn't performing at
peak efficiency when you're in the group. You'd be AMAZED at how much more
a group with one of us bards in it can handle than a group that doesn't have
us.

> Likewise bards are not the group powerup many think they are. If I take

> present group which has become very regular and I bow out, they see very
> little change in the mobs they can handle. If the cleric, the druid, the
> ranger, the necro, or the enchanter leave, we see a huge reduction in what
> we can take. take out any of those 5 and we lose 50% or near to it. take
> me out and we lose maybe 10%.

Again, see above, you are not operating at peak efficiency if this is the
case. In every zone I played in from around level 10 to level 50 every
single group I've been in has noticed a dramatic difference if I leave
verses...say... the wizard, necro or ranger. Losing a druid or cleric will
ALWAYS hurt more because they are your true emergency healers.

Now, I could be off-base, not everyone plays the same, nor does everyone
know SolA like the back of their hands. But after having run around as a
bard since sometime in summer of 1998 and having evolved my tactics with
advice from other bards, some here, some on older message boards, some met
in game, I can pretty much state that everything I stated here is factual.
You may play differently than I do. I almost always use DDD/COD/HOR/Binding
even at level 34 in combat. Once you get it throw in CoC instead of Binding
for even MORE power ;) It doesn't matter where I am, (non planar) this
combo works extremely well. The only place it ever got me in big trouble
was runny. And that was back when our songs got all goofed up by a nasty
bug during beta. Oh... it's a bad idea in Mistmoore as well. That zone is
so wacked it's painful. Though you can do the combo in a LOT of places
there. Learning where NOT to do it was kind of painful though ;)

At any rate. I've never had a problem proving my value to a group. I
simply would go solo for a bit. Generally after 2 or three attempts at
pulling the same number/kind of mobs we'd been pulling while I was there and
having several deaths or near-deaths I'd get a tell saying "Please come
back, we need you".

Good luck, hope this helps.

To steal someone's phrase: Your mileage may vary ;)

~ L

------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOW RATE, NO WAIT!
Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds! Get rates
as low as 2.9% Intro or 9.9% Fixed APR and no hidden fees.
Learn more at:
http://click.egroups.com/1/937/7/_/451022/_/954443231/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please send submissions for the eqbards newsletter to lol@...
with the subject submissions.